


maybe i'll fail, maybe i'll fall

by moon__goddess



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, chanyeol is a klutz, he's also really bad at math, like. really bad, minseok is a shy boi, peep the hints of xingdae, who lives in the library
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon__goddess/pseuds/moon__goddess
Summary: Chanyeol loses his statistics homework.  When he finds it, he might just find something else he didn't know he needed.written for Binghuo Fest Round 2 Prompt R3.030
Relationships: Kim Minseok | Xiumin/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 22
Kudos: 57
Collections: binghuo fest round two / 2020





	maybe i'll fail, maybe i'll fall

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to mod 61 for running this awesome fest!! i kind of... took my prompt and ran with it sjafhjsk but i hope the prompter enjoys it!
> 
>  _prompt:_ Chanyeol is struggling in math class. It doesn't help that he keeps losing his assignments in the library. That is until someone starts correcting his work and leaves helpful notes on it before leaving the assignments out for him to find.

Chanyeol curses the day his advisor reminded him that he needed to finish his general education requirements in order to graduate on time.

He also curses the day that Jongdae goaded him into registering for this class.

“‘Take  _ real  _ math, Chanyeol, not just computer science,’” he mumbles mockingly to himself. “Fucking Jongdae.” He unzips his backpack, rifling through his notebooks and random loose sheets of paper to try and find the problem set he’s supposed to hand in when he gets to class. “And then, like an idiot, I said, “It’s Basic Statistics and Probability, how hard can it be?” Stupid, stupid, stupid.” 

He pauses when he doesn’t find the sheet, and then starts over, shoving aside his notebooks and flipping through all the papers he can see.

“Fuck me,” he mutters. “Where  _ is _ it?”

He checks his bag a third time, opening every pocket and accidentally stabbing himself with a wayward pencil when he shoves his hand all the way to the bottom to make sure his homework isn’t buried under his spare hoodie.

Nothing.

_ Shit. _

The blaring red letters spelling out NO LATE ASSIGNMENTS ACCEPTED from the class syllabus flash through his mind. He can’t take a zero, he can’t, he needs to pass this class to graduate and getting a zero on the second homework set would severely tank his homework average - which, if he’s remembering correctly, is worth forty fucking percent of his grade. 

He’s in so much shit.

He sprints back to his dorm, fumbling his student ID twice when he tries to swipe it to unlock the door, and then takes the stairs two at a time, managing to only drop his keys once before opening the door to his single. One of the sophomores who lives down the hall from him waves as he walks out of the bathroom, and Chanyeol jerks his head in return before slipping into his room and letting the door swing shut behind him.

He glances at his bed (blankets askew, pillow crumpled from where he’d shot out of bed this morning in an effort to not be late to his first class of the day), and then, after seeing no stray papers, turns his attention to his desk.

Nothing, just his usual mess of scrap paper with lyrics or pieces of a thought he’d scribbled down. He checks the drawers, too, on the off chance that something other than his study snacks and a box of tissues would be there, but no luck.

He groans. He’s going to be late to class if he doesn’t leave immediately, and he doesn’t have his assignment to turn in. 

He glances at his watch. Better to be there, and beg forgiveness from his professor during office hours, than not show up at all.

Chanyeol skids into class and into a seat in the second row barely a second before his professor looks up from his computer and launches into the lecture. He tries to control his panting, dabbing the back of his sweaty neck as he digs out his notebook and a pencil, and blows out a deep breath before he starts taking notes on normal distributions.

When thirty minutes go by and Professor Pandya still hasn’t stopped talking about standard deviation, he leans over to the girl sitting two seats down from him, her head down as she stares at her notes. “Hey,” he whispers. “Did he collect the homework already?”

She startles, her pen skidding across the page, and Chanyeol stifles a chuckle as he realizes she’d been napping. “No,” she whispers back, her cheeks slightly pink. “He extended the deadline to next class. I guess a bunch of people emailed him with questions about the problems.”

Chanyeol’s sigh of relief makes her lips curve upwards. “I didn’t do it either,” she adds, looking back at the projector screen. “If that makes you feel better.”

His half-baked protest is cut off by Pandya turning around and asking if anyone has any questions.

Chanyeol has questions. So many of them. Like what exactly a standard deviation is, and why the formula for it is so unnecessarily complicated, and why he hasn’t dropped this class yet. But Pandya is nodding in satisfaction after maybe two seconds of silence, and moving onto the next slide, which reads “Rules of Probability.”

Another hour later, the class finally lets out, and Chanyeol’s head is spinning. He has no idea about any of the probability stuff. It looked relatively easy at first, and then Pandya had kept talking, and then all of a sudden none of it had made any sense. He sighs as he takes his homework back from the TA, a sullen-looking guy with obviously dyed hair and an eyebrow piercing, and shoves it in his bag without looking at it. He walks out of the classroom and down the hall, just another student in the stream of backpacks and idle chatter, and decides to head for his favorite smoothie shop. He needs a large Mango Blast.

He gets to the shop and orders, the girl behind the counter deceptively perky as she swipes his card and then begins making his smoothie. Thankfully, the shop is basically empty, just a girl with headphones on sitting at the counter by the big window scribbling in a notebook, so Chanyeol claims one of the small corner tables and drops his bag on the floor, waiting to sit until he has his smoothie in hand because he knows if he sits down he won’t get up again.

Right as his smoothie comes up on the bar, his phone starts buzzing in his pocket. He pulls it out as he sits, taking a long, grateful sip of his drink and rolling his eyes when he sees that it’s just Baekhyun.

“Come to the library,” is the first thing his best friend says when he answers the FaceTime call. 

“Why,” Chanyeol responds, leaning back in his chair. “I’m at Juiced Up, I just sat down.”

“Becauuuuse,” Baekhyun whines, “me and Dae convinced Kyungsoo to come with, and we have a table on four.”

Chanyeol sighs, resignedly reaching for his backpack. “I’m only coming because I haven’t seen Kyungsoo in like a week,” he says. “And I have to redo my stats problems.”

He hits end call before Baekhyun’s triumphant shriek can pierce his eardrums. 

The library is surprisingly busy for the second week of classes, Chanyeol thinks, as he weaves through a line of people by the reference desk and heads for the stairs. Normally it’s only this crowded during midterm season or finals week, not at the start of the semester. He’s glad his friends already have a place to sit, because when he gets to the fourth floor, every table he can see is occupied. 

He rounds the corner, passing a few stacks, and then he spots his friends in the back, Baekhyun gesticulating wildly as he talks, Jongdae failing to conceal his laughter, and Kyungsoo with his head in his hands, homework spread in front of them.

“What did I miss?” he asks, grinning and ruffling Kyungsoo’s hair as he pulls out the last chair at the table.

“Baekhyun being an idiot,”” Kyungsoo deadpans, smiling at him as he sits.

“So in other words, nothing.”

“Yah!” Baekhyun reaches across the table to whack him. “I take offense to that!”

“Good,” Chanyeol replies. “You were supposed to.”

Jongdae cackles at the affronted look on Baekhyun’s face. “Come on, Baekkie, you walked yourself into that one.”

Chanyeol stifles a laugh as Baekhyun begins to protest, letting the noise of his friends’ bickering wash over him as he opens his laptop.

Two hours later, Chanyeol has a three-page response paper for his literature professor written, half of a new song, and one and a half problems done on his statistics problem set. He drops his pencil and sighs, running a hand through his hair. Kyungsoo glances up from his book at the sound and raises a questioning eyebrow.

Chanyeol just gestures at his textbook, frowning, before shifting the book to the left so Kyungsoo can see the problems he’s attempting.

Kyungsoo hums, eyes scanning the page, before he taps the graph on the right. “You flipped the axes,” he says, before returning to his reading.

“Dammit,” Chanyeol mumbles, erasing half his work before starting again.

He re-makes his way through the rest of the problem before his shoulder starts to cramp. He gets up, stretching his arms behind his back, and then realizes that he needs to pee. “Bathroom,” he says, cracking his neck, and Jongdae just waves a hand at him in response, too busy scouring an article for quotes to say anything else.

Chanyeol smiles to himself as he walks away from their table. He heads for the closest bathroom, weaving through a couple rows of books before crossing the open workspace. He walks by a group of girls poring over textbooks, punching numbers into calculators, and blinks as he realizes he’d been in this corner of the library the other day, finishing his stats homework. It might still be here, he thinks, musing over the problem as he does his business and washes his hands. One of the unwritten rules of the library is to never move loose papers, because it could disturb someone’s work.

He leaves the bathroom and walks over to the table where he thinks he’d been working, trying like hell to look nonchalant as he scans the area. No papers visible, and he blows out a breath, taking off his cap and running a hand through his hair before readjusting the cap on his head. 

He walks to the next row of tables, glancing around, hoping he doesn’t look too much like a lost confused freshman, and grins when he spots a few pieces of paper on the table to his left. He hurries over to check, breathing a sigh of relief when he recognizes the handwriting on the lined paper as his own, and snatches the sheets. He quickly flips through them, happy to see all of his work is still there, and starts heading back toward his friends, when a spot of red ink catches his eye. He stops walking, looking at his work again.

The problems are covered in notations, all in red ink, made by someone with considerably neater handwriting than him. He skims them, mouth dropping open when he realizes that they’re  _ corrections _ , little mistakes he hadn’t even noticed, a couple of places where he used the wrong formula, and in one instance, a dropped negative that completely changed the answer. 

He quickly raises his head and looks around, trying to see if anyone around has a red pen and is watching him, but he sees no one, just the same group of girls from earlier and a guy with big headphones on, hunched over his laptop.

He starts walking again. He’s absolutely going to use these corrections to fix his homework, even though he doesn’t know who made them.

“So let me get this straight,” Baekhyun says, lacing his hands together and planting his elbows on top of the table. “You found your missing stats homework and it  _ just so happened _ to be covered in corrections?”

“I’m serious!” Chanyeol slaps his problem set pages down in front of his friends. “See for yourself.” 

Jongdae flips the top page over and whistles. “Damn, Chanyeollie, you are really bad at this.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m surprised whoever corrected this can read your terrible handwriting,” Jongdae continues, rifling through the rest of the pages. “Their handwriting is so much better than yours.”

Kyungsoo grins. “That’s not really an achievement, Dae.”

“Yah!” Chanyeol shoves Kyungsoo’s arm. “I’m still sitting here, you know.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and is about to say something else when Jongdae interrupts him.

“Chanyeol…” he says slowly, scanning the last page of the homework, “did you see this?”

“See what?” Chanyeol looks over at him worriedly.

Jongdae wordlessly hands him the sheet, his eyes glittering with mirth.

Chanyeol looks down at the sheet, inhaling sharply when he sees the scrawled message at the bottom of the page.

> _ Hi~ I know this is weird, but your homework was just lying on the table when I sat down, and I guess I just couldn’t help myself! Sometimes my TA instincts come out too much ^^; Anyways, hope this helps you out a bit!~  _
> 
> _ KMS =^-^= _

He stares at the message for another minute before shaking his head. “This is the weirdest thing to ever happen to me.”

“Lemme see.” Baekhyun makes grabby hands for the page and Chanyeol passes it to him. He skims the note and grins. “Finally, something to out-weird the Great Coffee Escapade of Spring 2019.”

Chanyeol snatches the sheet back as Baekhyun starts to giggle.  “Shut up, Baekhyun,” he mumbles.

“Didn’t think that was possible,” Kyungsoo comments, “but you really might have a chance with this, Yeol.”

Chanyeol just groans and slides down his chair so he’s halfway under the table.

“Stop embarrassing him,” Jongdae says with a smirk. “He’s just been read for filth by a rando on his homework, he needs some time to recover.”

“Not. Helping,” Chanyeol mutters, his ears starting to burn as Kyungsoo snorts with laughter. “I hate you all.”

Once everyone finally stops laughing, they get back to work, only slightly less interspersed with conversation than before. Baekhyun begs off first, citing a school newspaper e-board meeting, then Jongdae, who just says “I need a nap” when Kyungsoo raises his eyebrows questioningly at him after he stands up.

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo work in silence for a while, the only sounds the clack of Kyungsoo’s laptop keys and the scritch of Chanyeol’s pencil, until Chanyeol finishes copying the answer to the last problem on his statistics set and lets out a sigh of relief.

“Finished?” Kyungsoo asks, not looking up from his essay.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol responds, flexing his hand for a second. “I think I have a hand cramp.”

The corners of Kyungsoo’s mouth twitch upward. “It’s because you hold your pencil like you’re going to stab someone.”

“Don’t critique my pencil holding,” Chanyeol says, “you’re the one who complains about your back from spending all your time hunched over your computer.”

“Point.” Kyungsoo stretches his arms behind his back and then glances over at him. “So, are you gonna thank your mystery note-leaver?”

Chanyeol blinks owlishly at him. “What?”

“You heard me.”

He blows out a breath. “I don’t know, Soo. All I have to go on is the way he -  _ they _ \- signed the note. KMS? Could be initials, could be a nickname, could be anything, really.” 

Kyungsoo plants his elbows on the table and leans forward. “Chanyeol,” he says, “this person just saved you from getting a zero,  _ and _ they corrected your work.”

“I know!” Chanyeol runs a hand through his hair. “I know that, and I want to thank them, I really do, it’s just - I… I’m not sure how.”

“Well,” Kyungsoo says matter-of-factly, “you could just leave them a note or whatever in the same spot you found your homework. It stands to reason that they’d be back in that area of the library again if they found your homework in the first place.”

Chanyeol frowns. “True,” he says, drumming his fingers on his leg as he thinks. “And if I leave a couple papers out, no one will touch it.” 

Kyungsoo nods at him. “Unwritten rule.”

“Exactly.” A lightbulb goes off in Chanyeol’s brain, and he grins. “I got it,” he says excitedly, sweeping all of his things into a haphazard pile so he can shove them back into his bag. “I’ll see you later, okay?” he calls, throwing his still-open bag over his shoulder and power walking to the stairs.

He’s so focused on his idea, turning it over and examining it in his mind, that he doesn’t hear Kyungsoo yell, “ _ Chanyeol, your homework! _ ” after him.

He gets up at an ungodly hour the next morning - well, ungodly for him, because there are still plenty of people on the sidewalks, and the line at BlueCup, the best coffee shop on campus, is almost ridiculously long. But he waits, playing a mindless match-3 game on his phone and reading his texts and scrolling through his Twitter until he finally makes it to the register and places his order.

He feels bad for the baristas, since they look extremely harried, but the longer he watches them the more he sees that they run like a well-oiled machine; the tall, skinny guy smoothly weaving around the others as he caps drinks and gets food from the warmers and calls out order names, the girl at the espresso machine whose hands are neat and precise as she pours shot after shot into a row of cups, the person carefully etching foam art into each cup they get passed to them, their tattooed arms steady. His name finally gets called, so he shoves his phone back into his pocket and takes the two cups the skinny barista holds out, tossing a “Thank you” over his shoulder as he heads out of the shop.

Kyungsoo is waiting for him by the doors to the library, arms crossed, and he pulls his headphones down around his neck when he sees Chanyeol approaching.

“Your coffee,” Chanyeol says, holding out a cup. Kyungsoo takes it, rolling his eyes, and pulls out the homework he’d accidentally left behind at their table yesterday. 

“Idiot,” he responds, shaking the papers at him. Chanyeol takes them and stuffs them into his backpack.

“Thank you, Soo,” he says, wrapping an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d fail all your classes is what you’d do,” Kyungsoo snarks, but the hint of fondness in his tone is enough to make Chanyeol smile. “Stop losing your papers, okay?”

“I’ll try.” 

Kyungsoo sighs, elbowing him lightly. “That’s as much as I’ll get, huh.”

“I mean it, Soo.” Chanyeol grins at him. “I don’t  _ want  _ to fail, so I’ll try.”

Kyungsoo gives him an unimpressed look over the lid of his coffee. “I’ll hold you to that.” He glances at his watch. “Gotta go. I’ll text you later?”

“You know it.” Chanyeol wraps him in a one-armed hug and ruffles his hair, ignoring the glare that gets shot at him. “Go be a genius.”

“Shut up, Yeol.”

“Love you,” Chanyeol yells at his back as he walks away, and is satisfied with the way Kyungsoo’s ears flush.

He grins to himself for another moment before he heads into the library, making his way up to the fourth floor and reveling in the silence that greets him. There’s practically no one here, save that one guy in the corner frantically typing on his laptop, which makes Chanyeol glad. No one around to think that he’s extremely weird for doing what he’s about to do.

He walks over to the table where he’d found his stats homework yesterday and sits down, drumming his fingers on his leg for a moment before pulling out his laptop (it takes up so much space in his bag, and he bemoans buying the 17.5-inch screen instead of the 15-inch he’d originally been looking at for the umpteenth time) and the sheets of paper he’d prepped last night, along with the small envelope he’d labeled “KMS.” He tucks the BlueCup voucher he’d gotten inside, skims the note he’d written to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid like spell his own name wrong, and before he can chicken out, seals the envelope and places it half under the sheet of paper on the desk, poking out just enough that the “KMS” on the back can be spotted if someone looks closely.

A quick glance around tells him that there’s still no one other than now-maniacally-typing guy around, so he shoves his laptop back in his bag, hopes for a brief second that KMS will appear out of nowhere to take the envelope and bump into him, and when nothing happens, he leaves. 

> _ Hi! It was weird, but thank you - you might have just stopped me from failing the class. ^^; I honestly don’t know how (or why) you did it, but to thank you for saving my ass, your next coffee or two at BlueCup is on me. _
> 
> _ \- Chanyeol _

The semester continues, and the mystery of KMS is all but wiped from Chanyeol’s brain. He’s  _ so _ busy - his professors keep dumping work on him, the one club he signed up for is ending up to be  _ stupidly _ stressful, and he keeps forgetting to do his laundry until he’s completely out of underwear and can only find one sock.

He’s so busy, and so stressed about being busy, that almost exactly a month later, he loses his stats homework again.

“Fuuuuuuuck,” he groans, dumping the contents of his backpack onto his bed and rifling through them again. This cannot be happening, he thinks. His current homework average is barely acceptable, and he’d  _ just  _ managed to scrape a passing grade on the first exam, so he needs every point he could get. A zero for a missing assignment would in no way help him whatsoever.

He scrubs his face with his hands and looks at his bed in despair for maybe two seconds before he pulls out his phone and fires off a text to the group chat.

_ chingus  _

**yeol [10:54]**

hey friends do any of you happen to have my stats hw

i may or may not have misplaced it

**soo [10:55]**

chanyeol...

**yeol [10:55]**

i KNOW

i tried soo, i really did

i have no idea what happened

**soo [10:57]**

you made it a whole month

**yeol [10:57]**

😔

**baekkie [10:58]**

i got nothing fam

sry :/

**daedae [11:01]**

me either bud

**yeol [11:01]**

dammit 

dammit dammit dammit

thanks tho 

**baekkie [11:03]**

did u check under ur bed

sometimes ur papers fall there lol

**yeol [11:04]**

yeah i checked

i searched my whole room baek

idk where it is

**daedae [11:05]**

did you study anywhere other than your room?

**yeol [11:05]**

uh... 

library yesterday, i had to do research

and the study room in faber

**soo [11:06]**

have you considered the possibility that you left it in the library again

**yeol [11:07]**

i SWEAR i took all my shit with me when i left soo

**soo [11:07]**

i know, but you’ve been really stressed lately

it’s possible you missed something

**daedae [11:08]**

kyungsoos right yeol

im getting coffee before class, i can help you search if you want

**yeol [11:08]**

omg please

im lowkey freaking out

**daedae [11:09]**

meet at the library in 10?

**yeol [11:09]**

yes thank you so much

**baekkie [11:10]**

i can check faber for u too

u know i live close

**yeol [11:10]**

baekkie seriously?????

**baekkie [11:11]**

yeah ofc

i know how freaked u r about this class

**yeol [11:12]**

im legit gonnac ry

baek youre the best thank you

keep us updated k?

**baekkie [11:13]**

ofc

u too

Chanyeol takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before he shoves all of his things back in his bag and hurries out of his dorm.

When he gets to the library, only panting slightly, Jongdae is already there, holding out a coffee cup. “Here,” he says, taking a sip from his own drink. “I figured you’d need it.”

Chanyeol doesn’t say anything, just takes the cup and practically inhales it. “My lifesaver,” he gets out after he swallows his mouthful of beautiful, wonderful caffeine.

Jongdae grins. “Come on,” he says, elbowing him, “let’s go find your homework. Where were you sitting the other day?”

“Up on four, like usual,” Chanyeol responds as they walk in. “Actually, it was kind of in the same area that me, you, and Baek usually study in, close to the windows, you know? I didn’t even realize that when I was there yesterday, wow.” He takes another sip of his coffee. “And I swear, Dae, I swear I put everything back in my bag, but I was kind of rushing, so  _ maybe  _ I missed something, but I didn’t notice anything off when I was leaving, so-” He stops talking when he realizes Jongdae’s not responding. “Dae?”

“Hm?” Jongdae startles and looks back over at him. “Sorry, I kind of spaced out for a sec.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Chanyeol glances in the direction Jongdae had been looking and grins. “You wanna check him out, hm?”

Jongdae’s cheeks flush immediately as he swats Chanyeol’s arm. “That was the  _ worst _ library pun I have ever heard, oh my god I hate you so much.”

“But it’s truuuue,” he singsongs, and his smile gets wider as Jongdae’s face gets redder. 

“Shut UP,” he whisper-shouts, covering his face with his hands.

Chanyeol just smirks, deciding to drop the topic for now, and looks at the guy sitting at the reference desk for a second longer before they walk into the stairwell. Definitely Jongdae’s type, he thinks, dark hair, nice jawline, and from what he could tell, broad shoulders. 

They get up to the fourth floor and make their way to the area where Chanyeol had been sitting the last time, his mind already whirring with ideas for shoving Jongdae in a closet with the library desk guy, when Jongdae nudges him.

“Ow, your elbows are pointy,” he complains.

Jongdae rolls his eyes. “Stop whining.” He looks around at the tables and then lowers his voice a little. “Yeol,” he says, his face unusually serious, “isn’t this where you lost your stats homework last month? Before you found it with corrections?”

Chanyeol’s eyes widen. “Shit, you’re right!” He shakes his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize that. To be honest, I almost totally forgot that happened.”

“How can you  _ forget _ something like that, Yeol,” Jongdae says exasperatedly. “It was literally the weirdest thing since Coffeegate.”

“Don’t even  _ mention _ that,” Chanyeol replies. “I just… haven’t had time to think about anything, really.”

Jongdae sighs. “Bro, I get it.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Let’s see if we can find those papers then, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Chanyeol cracks a small smile and makes to walk toward the nearest empty table when the library intercom crackles to life.

“I apologize for the announcement, but would a Park Chanyeol please come to the first-floor reference desk. Thank you.”

Chanyeol and Jongdae stand frozen for a second before Jongdae whips around.

“What did you do, Chanyeol?” he demands. “If you broke something expensive, I swear to every god in existence I’m going to -”

“I didn’t do anything!” Chanyeol protests, throwing his hands in the air. “I have no idea what this is about, promise.”

Jongdae stares at him for another second before he acquiesces. “Okay, okay, I believe you.” He shakes his head ruefully as a smirk slowly crosses his face. “Let’s go get you out of whatever trouble you’re in so we can come back and find your homework.”

“Shut up,” Chanyeol mumbles, elbowing him in the side.

They hurry back down the stairs, Chanyeol trying his hardest to not drop his coffee or his backpack (the strap keeps sliding down his arm, throwing his balance off, and he really needs to readjust it later), and when they emerge from the stairwell Jongdae inhales sharply. Chanyeol looks over at the reference desk and sees that the guy from earlier is still sitting there, which makes him grin and elbow Jongdae again.

“You should talk to him,” he mutters, continuing to walk towards the desk. “He’s exactly your type.”

“I cannot and will not do so,” Jongdae fires back, staying a step behind him. “He is way too beautiful; I’d freeze the instant he looked at me.”

“Whatever you say, Casanova,” Chanyeol replies, stifling a laugh as Jongdae whines and whacks his arm. “Now come be my moral support.” He ignores Jongdae’s squeak of surprise as he walks up to the reference desk. “Hi, uh, I’m Park Chanyeol, I got called down here?”

The guy looks up at him and nods. “You have your ID?” he asks. “Protocol, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, uh, of course.” Chanyeol pulls out his wallet, awkwardly fumbling with it for a second, before managing to extricate his student ID and hand it over.

The guy glances at it, then up at him, then down again, and then he smiles. Chanyeol physically feels Jongdae’s entire body tense next to him.

“Cool, thanks,” he says. “Just had to make sure, you know?”

Chanyeol nods, and the guy grabs something from his desk and holds it out to him.

It’s a small stack of papers paper-clipped together, and the writing on it is  _ his _ \- his statistics homework. Chanyeol’s mouth drops open.

“How?” he asks, gingerly taking the papers.

The guy chuckles, and he swears Jongdae almost melts into a puddle at the sound. “It was left on the desk last night,” he says, turning to face them fully. “I’ve been making an announcement every hour.”

“Thank you,” Chanyeol says fervently. “Seriously, thank you so much.” He glances down and sees that the guy’s silver name badge reads  _ Zhang Yixing, Student Librarian _ . “Can I, like, recommend you for a raise or something?”

The guy - Yixing - laughs again. “Nah, don’t worry about it,” he says. “Glad I could help.”

“Well, thanks again,” Chanyeol says, smiling and turning away. As he starts walking, flipping through the pages to make sure it’s all there, he freezes again when something catches his eyes.

Red ink.

He turns the page over. More red ink, tiny neat numbers next to his messy scrawl, little circles and asterisks where he made some number of mistakes. His heart in his mouth, he turns to the last page, where, sure enough, there are a few lines of writing followed by the same signature he saw on the last page of his homework a month ago.

“Wait,” he says, turning back to the desk. “Uh, Yixing.”

Yixing looks up from his computer. “Yes?”

Chanyeol taps the pages. “Do you know who turned this in?”

“Why?” Yixing looks confused. “Is there something missing?”

Chanyeol shakes his head, handing him the last sheet - the one with the note on it. “No, but… there was this.”

He can feel Jongdae’s gaze burning a hole into the side of his head as Yixing skims the note. “I see,” he says, handing the page back to Chanyeol. “There wasn’t any note left with this, I’m afraid, just the pages.”

“No problem,” Chanyeol says, only slightly disappointed. “Figured I’d ask.” He stares down at his homework, turning this strange occurrence over in his mind, when he gets an idea. “I have another question, though.”

Yixing raises an eyebrow.

“If, if I left something here, for whoever did this,” he starts, almost tripping over his words, “do you think you could do something similar to what you did for me? Like, the announcement thing?”

Yixing’s eyes go wide for a second before he smiles. “Sure, why not,” he says.

Chanyeol can’t help the smile that steals across his face. “Awesome,” he replies. “Can I stop by later today with something? I have class soon.”

Yixing shrugs. “Yeah, any time. I’m here all day.”

“Thank you so much,” Chanyeol says, grinning at him.

“No problem.” He smiles again before turning back to his computer.

Chanyeol can’t keep the grin off his face as he pulls Jongdae out of the library.

“Will you finally tell me what that was all about?” Jongdae asks the second they’re outside.

“Look,” Chanyeol says, shoving his homework sheets at him. Jongdae takes them, and after a few seconds his eyebrows fly up.

“Corrections? Again?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol says giddily. “And look at the last page.”

Jongdae turns the sheets over. “Holy shit,” he yelps. “This -” He looks at Chanyeol. “Is this the same person as last time?”

“Yeah.” Chanyeol grins as Jongdae’s mouth drops open in shock the same way his did. “Holy shit indeed.”

> _ Hi~ This is so weird, I’m so sorry if this is weird, but I can’t believe I found your homework again! Since I guess you didn’t mind the last time, I corrected it again… sorry if it’s overwhelming, I just don’t know when to turn off my TA brain! I got your note, and you absolutely did not have to do that, but thank you anyway ^^ I enjoyed my coffee very much! I hope this helps you continue to not fail, hehe~ _
> 
> _ KMS =^-^= _

Chanyeol goes back to the library after he’s done with classes for the day to give Yixing the note he’d scrawled during his architectural design lecture, intending to just drop it off and head back to his room, but his eye catches on the textbook Yixing’s reading as he hands the note over, and before he knows it he’s spent twenty minutes talking to him about production techniques and innovation in the music industry. He finds out that Yixing’s a grad student in the production department, originally from China, teaches at a local dance studio part-time to help pay his bills, and is  _ frighteningly _ intelligent despite his blank stare. He leaves the library another fifteen minutes later with a smile and a new contact in his phone.

> _ Hi~ Once again you have completely saved my ass, please don’t apologize! Honestly, your notes kinda helped me understand the concepts a bit better, and I really need to pass, so, I was wondering if you’d consider tutoring me? You’re really good at this and I kinda need all the help I can get (as you can probably tell). You can leave me a note with the librarian with your response or something, I’m always there lol so I’ll get it.  _
> 
> _ \- Chanyeol _

Two days later, Chanyeol finally has time to go back to the library, where Yixing gives him a thumbs up and a note. He throws his bag down at the nearest open space and unfolds it, his fingers shaking, his heart weirdly in his throat.

> _ Hi~ I’m so busy I don’t really have any time to meet up for tutoring :( But if you want, I can correct your homework like the last couple times? That doesn’t take me too long, and you said the notes helped you understand, so I think it might work! If that’s okay with you, leave your next homework set with Yixing. He’ll make sure I get it. ^^ Also, thank you again for the coffee, you really don’t have to give me anything! _
> 
> _ KMS =^-^= _

He grins.

The semester continues, and Chanyeol is still stupidly busy - it’s almost like his professors all think he’s only taking one class, not four, which is the required number of classes for full-time students so they should all know better, and yet they still think that all his time needs to be dedicated to their class and their class alone. He spends more time than ever in the library, since he’s discovered that he is terrible at getting work done if he sits in his room, sometimes joined by Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Kyungsoo, sometimes alone. He chats with Yixing every time he sees him, which gives him plenty of ammunition to tease Jongdae, and he starts writing notes to KMS on the back of his stats homework when he leaves it for him - at least he’s pretty sure they’re a he - to correct.

KMS writes notes back, and their conversations get longer, so much so that Chanyeol starts including an extra blank page with his homework. He learns that KMS is, in fact, a guy, he’s double majoring in data science and education, he has two flatmates and a cat, and he makes a lot of ridiculous puns and dad jokes.

He snorts out loud at the latest one, a terrible joke about American rain, and both Jongdae and Kyungsoo shoot him weird looks.

“What are you laughing at?” Kyungsoo asks, fiddling with his pencil. “Did you make a dumb mistake again?”

Chanyeol shakes his head. “No, it’s… it’s nothing.”

The paper he’s holding gets snatched out of his hand. “Doesn’t look like nothing,” Baekhyun says triumphantly. “Who’s KMS?”

Jongdae drops his textbook.

Chanyeol feels his ears go bright red as he tries to get the paper back from Baekhyun. “No one, it’s nothing, please give me my homework back.”

“Park Chanyeol.” Jongdae slowly turns to face him. “What are you doing.”

Kyungsoo looks up from his reading, eyes wide behind his glasses like he’s waiting for the answer as well.

Chanyeol groans. “He’s tutoring me, sort of.”

“Uh, pause,” Baekhyun says, wiggling the sheet he’s still holding. “This does not look like tutoring. Unless…” He gasps and then leers at Chanyeol, a smirk stretching across his face. “He’s  _ tutoring _ , if you know what I mean.”

“Oh my god.” Chanyeol finally grabs the sheet and shoves it into his backpack. “You’re the worst, it is definitely not like that.”

Baekhyun holds up his hands. “I know what I read,” he says, but when Chanyeol glares at him he sits back down.

“So explain the ‘sort-of’,” Kyungsoo says, leaning forward. 

“Uh, we haven’t actually met in person.” Chanyeol winces when his friends’ eyes get even wider. “He corrects my homework and answers any questions I write down for him, and it’s been really helpful, okay?”

“Okay,” Jongdae says slowly, “but how do you exchange stuff? Like, wouldn’t you have to meet him to do that?”

“Actually,” Chanyeol replies smugly, “he leaves my corrections with Yixing, and I pick up and drop off stuff with him too.”

Jongdae flushes at the mention of Yixing’s name and looks back at his laptop screen.

“So the spacey student worker on one is your tutoring middleman for some dude you’ve never met,” Baekhyun says thoughtfully. “That is… very weird. Like, weirder than the time someone random corrected your home-” He stops mid-sentence, his mouth flopping open. “Wait. Waitwaitwait.” He turns to Chanyeol. “Is this the same person?”

“...Yeah.”

“Holy SHIT!” Baekhyun crows, starting to laugh. “Holy shit, Chanyeol, that’s completely insane.” He laughs so hard he doubles over. “You - you suck so much at stats, you got a random stranger to correct all your work, oh my  _ god _ -” He breaks off, laughing too hard to continue.

Before Chanyeol can reach across the table to whack him, Kyungsoo elbows him, hard enough that Baekhyun chokes a little bit. “Don’t laugh at him, Baek,” he says. “He’s only doing what you should have done for that graphic design course you took last year.”

“Hey, I thought we swore never to speak of that again,” Baekhyun replies, crossing his arms as if to protect his chest from more attacks. “But I see your point.”

Kyungsoo gives him a little smile and goes back to highlighting his article.

“Can we also never speak of this again?” Chanyeol asks, his ears still hot.

Baekhyun sighs. “Fine.”

When Chanyeol gets back to his dorm that night, he flattens out the sheet with the note on it and places it on his desk, on top of all the other notes that KMS has written him.

He gets ready for bed and then flops onto his mattress, idly scrolling through Twitter and then switching to Instagram for a bit before he realizes how restless he is. He locks his phone and buries his face in his pillow for a second.

Stupid Baekhyun and his stupid insinuation of ‘tutoring’, he thinks. He’s never even heard of that happening in real life.

He rolls over, trying to find a more comfortable position, and ends up on his back, hands folded behind his head. Is it weird, he wonders? The whole thing with KMS?

No, he decides, glancing over at the pile of notes on his desk. It isn’t that weird. Just a standard case of tutoring where they use a middleman to pass papers back and forth and never see each other in person. Totally normal.

After a minute, Chanyeol sighs. Nothing about this is normal, he thinks. But he’s not going to complain - his homework average is steadily going up, and he managed to get a 78 on the second midterm, so he’s in much better shape to actually pass the class, all thanks to KMS. 

He smiles as he remembers the last few notes they’d written to each other. KMS had been so excited when he’d told him that he’d gotten a better score on his exam, he’d drawn a cute little kitty face cheering, which had made Chanyeol grin like an idiot. They’d also talked about their majors a bit, Chanyeol mentioning that he did production and this class was for his general education requirements, which prompted KMS to go on a mini-rant about the education system and the structural requirements at their university, which had been - enlightening, to say the least. KMS was so smart, and he was able to eloquently put his thoughts down on paper, something that Chanyeol had always struggled with, which was part of the reason why he’d turned to music to express himself in the first place. But in addition to admiring him, he felt like he  _ knew _ KMS, like he could understand his thought process, and he liked that they were able to talk about other things besides math (and his utter inability to grasp the statistical concepts they were covering). He liked reading the latest note, he liked seeing the little red emoticons next to his work, he liked being able to talk with someone that wasn’t one of his three close friends - even if the talking in question was just writing notes back and forth.

He nestles back into his pillow and stares up at the ceiling. He’d like to meet KMS in person, he thinks. He wants to find out if their neat handwriting belies a neat person, if they’d laugh at his jokes the same way they do on paper, if the cat emoticons they use are equally as cute as they are.

Finals inch closer, and Chanyeol is stressed. His arrangement project isn’t sounding like he thought it would, his literature group is being supremely obstinate and he wants to murder them all, and he is struggling big time with the most recent topics in statistics.

At the end of one class, his professor announces extra office hours for review, and Chanyeol writes the times down in his planner, bound and determined to see if he can get at least  _ some _ of his questions answered.

He shows up at 2:00 on the dot on Thursday, thankfully not seeing any familiar faces from his class in the halls - meaning he has his professor all to himself. He runs a hand through his hair and opens the door to the math department, and immediately bumps into another student.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, sidestepping out of the doorway. 

“No, it’s okay,” the other guy says, smiling briefly at him, and oh man is he cute. Chanyeol’s brain short-circuits for a second. “This door needs a window, I keep telling the department head.” 

“Haha, yeah,” Chanyeol responds, instantly feeling himself flush because of his own awkwardness. “Just to avoid crashing into people.”

The guy adjusts his backpack on his strong-looking shoulders. “Exactly!” He smiles up at Chanyeol again, his eyes crinkling a little, and Chanyeol needs to stop  _ staring _ . “Well, I won’t keep you.” He wiggles his fingers in a little wave and then heads down the hallway.

Chanyeol does not watch him go. He does not admire the muscles in the guy’s legs, and back, and the way his jean jacket is just a little tight around his arms. 

He blinks and steps into the math department offices, letting the door close behind him.

Classes are finally over, and Chanyeol has made a little home for himself in the library for study week, only leaving to go get food or to crash in his dorm. It’s packed, students at every table and desk, everyone looking harried and frantic as they cram for exams, which start the next Monday. Even Baekhyun is quiet when he joins Chanyeol, silently reading and rereading his history of journalism notes.

Saturday night finds Chanyeol still in the library, poring over his statistics review sheet, while Jongdae makes himself a study guide for his coding final. Kyungsoo is typing like a madman, presumably finishing his fifteen-page art history essay, while Baekhyun is mouthing research terms to himself. All of them have coffee, having  _ just _ made it to BlueCup before closing, and they’ve been silently working for the past two hours.

Chanyeol finally breaks the silence, letting out a groan as he puts his pencil down and rubs his eyes. “I hate this,” he says. “I hate this so much.”

“Mood,” Baekhyun says without looking up from his notes.

“I need a break.” Chanyeol stretches and rolls his neck, wincing when it cracks. “I’ve been sitting still for too long, gonna go get a snack.” He pushes his chair back and stands up, shaking the fatigue from his legs. “Anyone wanna come?”

Jongdae sighs. “Sure. My brain feels dead, maybe this’ll help.”

“That’s the spirit,” Kyungsoo says distractedly, and Chanyeol smiles for a second before he and Jongdae make their way over to the stairs.

When they get to the first floor, Chanyeol glances at the reception desk only to meet Yixing’s eye. He waves them over with a smile.

“Hey Xing,” Chanyeol says, leaning on the desk and using his elbows to prop himself up, ignoring whatever Jongdae is frantically muttering. “How’re you holding up?”

Yixing gestures toward his large coffee. “Same as you.” He smirks. “I have your practice test, by the way.” He hands Chanyeol a stapled packet. “Looks better than last time.”

“Hey,” Chanyeol laughs, taking the packet and flipping through it. “I don’t need you sassing me about my math skills, thank you very much.” He grins as he gets an idea. “I get enough of it from him,” he adds, jerking his thumb at Jongdae.

“Oh?” Yixing looks over at him with a smile. Chanyeol watches with glee as a flush starts stealing up Jongdae’s neck.

“Yeah,” Jongdae manages to say. “I’m ashamed to be his friend, it’s that bad.”

Yixing laughs, which only serves to turn Jongdae’s face even redder. “At least he’s getting some help now, right?”

“Right.” Jongdae runs a hand through his hair, and something in Yixing’s face changes - which does not escape Chanyeol’s notice. “Yeol, I’m gonna go find food,” Jongdae says, turning to him. “See you back upstairs.” He waves at the two of them and hurries away.

“So.” Chanyeol plants his elbows on the desk and leans forward. “I saw you watching him.”

To his surprise, Yixing flushes. “He’s cute,” he says, shrugging slightly. “And funny, from what I’ve heard when he talks to you or your other friends when you walk by.”

Chanyeol grins. “Then I have a deal for you,” he says. “Since you want to sass my math skills so much.”

Yixing raises an eyebrow. “What do you have in mind?”

“If I pass my final,” Chanyeol says, “and by pass I mean get a B or higher… then you have to ask him out.”

Yixing drums his fingers on the desktop as he thinks. “You know what,” he says after a few seconds, “why the hell not.” He grins at Chanyeol. “I’ve seen more than enough of your math skills to know that you’ll pass, but not get a B.”

“Oh, you’re on.” Chanyeol extends his hand and they shake.

Chanyeol throws himself into statistics. He has motivation now, that motivation being getting Jongdae a boyfriend, but he also wants to prove himself to KMS. Prove that KMS is a good teacher, that he can help even the most hopeless of students (Chanyeol himself) pass a class. The notes on his practice exam give him strength, every kitty emoticon making him smile and push himself through another practice problem. He remembers one of the last notes KMS had written him, an interesting thinkpiece-slash-rant about the stigma against male educators and how they’re seen as ‘girly’ or ‘not masculine enough’ since the field of education and teaching is unfairly gendered, and wants to help him prove everyone wrong, so he powers through another practice exam, revising and rewriting his notes on theorems and formulas to help memorize them, and going over the tips KMS had written in the margins of his homework to more easily solve problems. He smiles each time he sees one of KMS’s smileys on the sheets.

He takes his statistics exam Monday afternoon, and when he hands it to Professor Pandya at the end of the two hours he smiles. His professor smiles back.

His grade goes up Friday morning, and he gasps when he checks his email while waiting in the line at BlueCup.

Chanyeol power walks into the library, phone in one hand and breakfast sandwich in the other, grinning like a madman.

“Yixing!” he says as soon as he gets close enough to the reference desk to be heard, making Yixing turn towards him and away from the person he’s talking to. “I did it! I got an 87!”

Yixing’s mouth drops open. “What?”

“I passed,” Chanyeol says happily, shoving his phone in Yixing’s face to show him the grade. “You better follow up on your end of the deal!”

“I did say that,” Yixing says, shaking his head ruefully. He sighs, turning back to the other person at the desk. “Sorry, Minseok, looks like I can’t take you up on that blind date. I have someone to ask out.”

Chanyeol looks up from his phone and barely contains his gasp. The person at the desk is none other than that cute student he almost ran over in the math department.

The guy - Minseok, Yixing called him - smiles, and it’s the same cute gummy smile, and Chanyeol’s brain whites out once again. “Did you make a bet or something?”

It takes Chanyeol a second to realize the question is directed at him. “Yeah,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the desk. “Yixing has to ask someone out because I passed my statistics final.”

“With a grade higher than a B,” Yixing adds. “What did you say you got, Chanyeol? An 86?”

“87,” Chanyeol replies, smirking at him, before realizing that Minseok’s eyes are very wide.

“C-Chanyeol?” he stammers.

“That’s me,” Chanyeol says, feeling a little thrown and slightly concerned at the look on Minseok’s face.

“Oh, would you look at that, I’m on break, bye Minseok,” Yixing says quickly, and gets up from his chair, patting Chanyeol on the shoulder as he walks away and vanishes into the stacks.

Minseok stares at him for a second before running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I… I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t?” Chanyeol tilts his head questioningly. “I…” He pauses. “That’s okay. I mean, it’s a little weird that Yixing just left us here, but, I mean, you can go back to whatever you were doing, I just came by to tell him that I passed, so…” He trails off.

Minseok twists his hands together for a second before he squeezes his eyes shut. “Chanyeol, I’m KMS,” he says, so fast it takes Chanyeol a second to understand.

“W-what?”

Minseok opens his eyes. “They’re my initials,” he says, his voice getting smaller by the second. “I’m the one who’s been tutoring you in statistics.” He looks down at the ground, balling the edge of his sweatshirt in his fists.

Chanyeol blinks, the information processing. Minseok keeps looking down, his shoulders slumping, and it clicks - the person standing before him is KMS, the same KMS who encouraged him for almost an entire semester, the KMS who has so much to prove, the KMS who works extremely hard and is so smart it’s kind of scary, the KMS who helped him pass a class he really thought he was going to flunk. Before he knows what he’s doing, he steps forward and wraps Minseok in a hug.

Minseok freezes, lines of tension running through his body, but Chanyeol just envelops him. “Thank you,” he mutters. “I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”

He lets go after a second and steps back, flushing. “I’m sorry,” he immediately says, “that was weird, I didn’t even ask you if it was okay to hug you, and you were probably uncomfortable, and I’m so sorry, I don’t-”

“Chanyeol,” Minseok says quietly, stopping his rambling in its tracks. “It’s okay.” He twists his hands in his sweatshirt again. “I was just… surprised.” He looks up at Chanyeol. “No one’s thanked me for helping them before.”

“Well,” Chanyeol replies, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously, “I did just get an 87 on a final I thought I was going to get a 0 on, so I am extremely grateful.”

Minseok chuckles, and Chanyeol feels his heart do a funny little jump in his chest. “I’m glad you passed, Chanyeol,” he says. “I’m really proud of you.”

Chanyeol smiles, his face warm, the rush of success fueling him, so he decides to take a leap of faith. “Will you let me buy you coffee as a thank you? In person, this time.”

Minseok blinks, and then a grin slowly spreads across his face. “I think I’d like that,” he says.

“So, let me get this straight,” Baekhyun says when they meet up in Chanyeol’s room during the first week of the new semester. “You met your mystery tutor during finals week, when you went to set Jongdae up with spacey student worker on one, and now you’re dating?”

“Hey, Yixing’s not spacey,” Jongdae protests. “He’s just always thinking about his projects.”

Chanyeol laughs, elbowing Baekhyun. “You make it sound so simple,” he says. “And we’re not dating. Yet.”

“You’ve been on like five dates,” Jongdae says accusingly. “If that’s not dating, then Yixing and I are just friends.”

“We haven’t talked about it yet!” Chanyeol replies, smiling as he throws up his hands in surrender. “But…” He laces his hands behind his head and smiles even wider. “I think I’m gonna ask him to be my boyfriend.”

Baekhyun squeals and launches himself at him, knocking him back onto his bed. “Chanyeollie’s gonna have a boyfriend!” he shrieks, and Chanyeol starts laughing.

“Get off me,” he says, grinning. “Go attack Jongdae for also having a boyfriend.”

“Already did that,” Baekhyun says.

“Yeah, the second you saw me in the dining hall, you idiot,” Jongdae fires back.

Kyungsoo glances up from his phone. “Wait, that commotion was you two?”

“Kyungsooooo,” Jongdae whines, “you saw that and didn’t come save me?”

“I was not getting in the middle of that,” Kyungsoo replies. “Besides, I didn’t know it was you.”

“Fine,” Jongdae pouts. 

Chanyeol’s phone buzzes as Baekhyun starts peppering Kyungsoo with questions about his break. He looks at the name on the screen and smiles, quickly typing out a reply.

He locks his phone once the message sends and leans back against the wall, thinking about how Minseok has changed his life for the better, all because one set of corrections on his lost homework.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!! i hope you enjoyed~  
> THANK YOU TO MY BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL BETA LINDA ILYSM YOURE THE BEST  
> and thank you again to the mod for running this fest!  
> ♥
> 
> [tumblr](https://yixingminseokjongdae.tumblr.com) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/allforexot9) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/moon_goddess)


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